Open Standard Launches Open USD With Visa, BlackRock, and Mastercard Consortium, Threatening USDC

Open Standard launched Open USD on June 30, 2026, positioning the dollar-backed stablecoin as a rival to Circle’s USDC and backing it with a consortium of 140 companies associated with Visa, Stripe, Mastercard, BlackRock and Coinbase.

“Jefferies warns against buying the dip in Circle as Open USD raises new competition fears The investment bank said new competition from the Stripe- and Coinbase-backed stablecoin consortium could pressure USDC's growth”

@coindesk

Cointribune said the launch triggered a “terremoto bursátil” and that Circle’s stock “se hundió más de un 16 %en una sola sesión bursátil,” as investors viewed OUSD as a direct threat to USDC.

@coindesk

CoinDesk reported that Circle (CRCL) shares bounced 5% Wednesday after a 17% plunge, with investors weighing whether Open USD’s Stripe-, Mastercard-, Coinbase- and BlackRock-backed consortium poses a lasting threat to the USDC issuer.

Jefferies told clients, “Buy the dip? We wouldn't,” warning that “CRCL headwinds are unlikely to ease,” while Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire pushed back that stablecoins are network businesses built over years rather than products that can be replicated overnight.

Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire defended USDC’s competitive position after Open USD’s unveiling, arguing in a post on X that stablecoin success depends on long-term network effects rather than fee structures or shared governance models.

In that same dispute, Allaire said stablecoins are “ultimately network businesses built over years rather than products that can be replicated overnight,” pointing to USDC’s ecosystem of thousands of integrations, deep liquidity across exchanges and decentralized finance protocols, and regulatory approvals in markets including Europe and Japan.

AMBCrypto

ARK Invest’s Lorenzo Valente challenged the consortium approach, writing in an X post, “Every year we get our consortium-style initiative around a stablecoin,” while adding that he was “highly skeptical any of these initiatives can hit scale.”

Valente also warned that coordinating more than 140 participants with competing interests could be slow, saying, “The pace of decision-making across competitors is going to be glacial,” and likened the model to DAOs whose governance structures often struggled to make timely decisions.

While the stablecoin rivalry dominated headlines, CryptoRank said Aave recorded about 1,806 new wallets on June 30, describing it as its largest 24-hour network growth on Ethereum since October 2021.

“- Circle Internet Group shares are trending higher”

Benzinga

CryptoRank also reported that AAVE was up roughly 12% over the past week and that stablecoin supply reached $314 billion in mid-June 2026, framing the wallet growth as renewed DeFi adoption and fresh user inflows.

Cointribune described Open USD’s economic design as fee-free minting and redemption with no charges or volume limits for consortium members, and said most reserve-generated income would be redistributed to participating companies.

In the Circle debate, CoinDesk said Circle holds roughly 25% of the $300 billion stablecoin market and that it derives about 95% of its revenue from interest earned on USDC reserves, making the competitive outcome tied to supply growth and market share.